So, sorry this is a couple days later than I said I was going to try to get it out. I guess New Year's resolutions really are just meant to be broken. But the reasoning is that I was getting back into competitive battling for SW/SH with a couple of my friends, and have been building teams and EV training the hours away. And from this I have one thing to say. thank you mr fish.
Other than that, it's just been the generic stress of New Years, and since I work at a gym we've been busy enough that I'm just drained by the time I get home and haven't been writing when I'm not playing Sword. Anyways.
Let's get it.
It was just another one of those things Luke couldn't wrap his head around. It didn't make sense by any stretch of the word.
The Abra had been following Jul around ever since the three challengers came to the spot that Luke had found for them to train. Every day, the yellow fox would be waiting for them in the morning. But it didn't stop there.
Without her catching it, the psychic fox started training alongside her pokemon, teleporting away when Luke, Brendan, or one of their pokemon came near. It even acted friendly towards Chocolate and skittishly around Franz.
It made sense for it to be scared of Franz: Poochyena were natural predators of Abra and Kadabra. But why was it comfortable around Chocolate?
Luke tabled the thought for the moment to focus in on how the rookies were doing with training. Brendan was struggling to keep up with Salazar as trainer and pokemon climbed and jumped from boulders in an attempt to catch up to Rebecca. What Luke didn't tell them was that they wouldn't.
Brendan was immensely talented in recognizing patterns, but that alone wouldn't let him catch the Grovyle. He had no hope of actually doing it so long as he remained reactionary. Salazar was agile and fast, but for every stride the female took he had to take three.
On the other hand, Jul was busy climbing trees as Oliver, now a freshly evolved Marshtomp, worked on strength training beside Amelia the Aron. Luke would have preferred her to be working with her starter, but knew it wasn't the best idea. The mudfish could afford to train his strength by lifting and smashing rocks, putting his body through that strain. Jul's human physiology made it riskier to do such training without the proper equipment.
Besides, the teens didn't need to bulk up or put on muscle mass. The unorthodox exercises combined with daily calisthenics helping them trim down and improve their agility were more important to a trainer than raw physical strength.
At least, they were in Luke's opinion. The speed and agility training would help them more in the wilds or unsanctioned battles than in the gym circuit, but the encounters with Aqua assured the senior trainer that this was the correct move. Jul and Brendan needed to be more than just pokemon trainers. They needed to be athletes and outdoorsmen too.
Which Luke realized he was doing a shoddy job of teaching them. He'd been holding their hands in the wilds, doing the greatest share of the work in foraging, cooking, and selecting trails. Sure, they were still picking things up here and there, but they weren't learning the processes.
Granted, the Unovan didn't really remember how he learned, but that was because of how long ago he learned, having been taught to camp, hike, and forage years before he started training pokemon.
While the rookies were busy with their training, he'd get back to his exercise.
Sliding the goggles back over his eyes, he pushed off into the lake beside Dart the Magikarp. Swimming across the lake three times was about a mile, and Luke planned to get in three or four that day. Dart needed the exercise, and his trainer loved the swim.
The Unovan teen had done a bit of research into how to get Magikarp to evolve since they were far from competent battlers, and the general consensus was good nutrition and non-combat-based training for about a month. By his eye and what the articles had said, Dart would probably need about half that. Just in time for the battle against Brawly, just to act as an ace if the rest of his team was struggling against the fighting types.
Even if he didn't, Luke would still enjoy his two hours or so of swimming each day. The familiar ache in muscles he didn't get to use often would help him get a more restful sleep, even if it killed him how much slower he was in the water than before he started his journey. The added drag and weight of the water shirt didn't help his speed, but he would rather go slower than have a sunburned back.
It happened when Julia was at the top of her tree, Brendan taking a break on top of a boulder, and Luke was three-fourths across the lake on the way back.
Julia was about twenty meters above the ground, and she was taking the opportunity to observe Luke and the way he moved in the water. She remembered him mentioning enjoying swimming and being in the water but didn't realize how good he was at it. His body cut through the liquid like he was the fish instead of his Magikarp and had been for the last hour.
Then the water behind him started foaming, bubbles forming as something agitated the water. The brunette assumed that he realized it because he sped up, racing toward the shore. She rushed down the tree, her brother's shouts to the pokemon indicating he noticed it too.
Luke was about fifty meters away from the shore when it roared, the blue serpentine pokemon finally emerging from the water.
Julia was terrified for the boy in the water, if the Gyarados wanted to, she was sure it could eat him in a single bite. Luckily, it seemed more engaged in churning the water white as it thrashed the water in a frenzy born of its evolution.
Oliver, now a Marshtomp, Kord, Chocolate, and Zatanna the Abra were waiting for her when she reached the ground again, and together they raced to the lakeside where Brendan was waiting with his own and Luke's teams.
As soon as Luke reached the shore, he tore out of the water to grab his hip-pack. Brendan tried to grab his arm as he passed.
"Are you crazy?" the younger boy shouted, gesturing to the Gyarados, "If you return it, it'll just be this mad all over again when you let it back out!"
"I'm not trying to return him," the blue-eyed boy panted as he took off his goggles and bucked the bag around his waist. "What I'm doing is getting ready to calm him down by force."
Julia flinched when she heard Luke's tone. It was cold and hard, with a slight strain. "Wait, he didn't do anything wrong, it's not his fault he couldn't control his evolution! There's no reason to attack him!"
The Unovan turned to her, and she could see the tension in his eyes. "You're right, it isn't his fault, and I'm not going to attack him, just make sure he doesn't come over here or towards town. I didn't think he was going to evolve yet." She was able to pick up the slight panic in his voice, and the way his hand kept twitching toward his hip-pack.
Then the leviathan saw the trainers and pokemon on the shore and booked it towards them. Dart's new serpentine body slid above and below the water as he approached, red eyes blazing.
Luke stepped up, standing between the siblings and his Gyarados. "Rebecca, you're the main attacker. Franz, Shigure, make sure he doesn't get the chance to pin her down. Amelia, stand back. I'll return him and send him back out into the lake if we need to, but I'd rather not have to do it."
As her mentor's team was preparing to fight the atrocious pokemon, Julia stepped forward, moving past him and all of their collective teams. She had no idea why she did it, but there was something there that made her. A feeling, a bit of intuition, a desire to not see the water-type harmed, she had no idea.
Both boys tried to grab her, but she moved out of their grips and faced the Gyarados.
Julia spread her arms wide, and locked eyes with Dart as he charged the beach. She absent-mindedly realized Zatanna had teleported onto her shoulder.
"STOP!" She shouted, and everything went dark.
The first thing Julia realized was that she was in Luke's hammock again, wrapped in a blanket. Her pokemon were on the ground below, standing close together and forming a wall of sorts between her and Luke's Gyarados.
Dart, she recalled its name, lay coiled ten meters away from the hammock on the shore of the lake. His head rested on his body, one blood red eye kept open and peering at her. When he saw she was awake, he uncurled and gave a soft growl in her direction.
Even as her pokemon tensed, she knew there was no reason. He wasn't threatening her. Quite the opposite really. It seemed like he had been keeping a vigil over her, protecting and looking out for her.
But that made no sense to Julia. Why were Luke's pokemon so weird?
They had a system of protecting one another and Luke on their own, and seemed like they were willing participants in it instead of it being a system they were forced to follow. Like when Franz stayed watchful and attentive instead of running around and playing when Rebecca wasn't with them. Or the way Matthew always followed Serra around like a bodyguard when Luke had them out, or how Amelia seemed possessive over her teammates and trainer.
And now this? A calm Gyarados watching over a helpless human so soon after evolving when by all rights he should have been consumed with the infamous evolution rage his line suffered from. It really did make no sense.
Then she noticed the pair of boys talking to May just beside Dart, and realized they were probably trying to figure out what happened.
When Julia made to stand up from the hammock, her knees turned to jelly, and her stomach felt painfully empty. She caught herself before she faceplanted, falling to her knees instead. Oliver came to her side, concern etched into the face normally clouded with aggression and anger.
Steadying herself on her pokemon, Julia stood and made her way towards the other trainers. When she approached him, Dart gave a low whine in an apparent apology. She accepted it by patting his now blue scales affectionately. It wasn't his fault, after all.
"I'm telling you, there's something special about what happened." Luke said to the other two, not realizing Julia was awake. "I've never trained one before, but Gyarados don't just stop like that, snap out of an evolution rage in less than five minutes when it normally takes an hour if they aren't sedated or battled down."
"Coincidences happen," Brendan added, crossing his arms, "but we're telling you, this was weird. Dart recoiled like he realized he was about to attack his mother or something. Like he couldn't bring himself to hurt her."
"Sort of like when the blue blur randomly decided to not attack Brendan even though it thrashed the three of us." The Unovan teen said as he gestured to the boy and the Gyarados, an edge creeping into his tone. "I think this is worth telling your dad about. As the leading researcher on pokemon habits and as someone who knows her that won't flip when they hear."
Julia smiled at that. "What, you don't want to have to tell my mother that you let a Gyarados charge me?"
Luke and Brendan flinched away from her sudden appearance while May jumped forward to embrace her. Julia lightly returned the hug before pulling back.
"Well," she said, looking between her three friends, "Any chance we could fill me in on what happened? I don't really remember."
"You don't remember anything?" Luke asked with a frown, suspicion evident in his eyes. Even if he hid it in his tone, she could still see it.
"Not after I shouted at him to stop." She said, motioning to the Gyarados.
Dart uncoiled and slithered next to Julia and Luke, resting his head on the ground with eyes downcast. As though he were a child who couldn't bring himself to look in his parents' eyes while apologizing.
"That's the thing," Brendan said as Luke moved to rub Dart behind the crest on his head, "Nothing really happened after that. Your Abra fell unconscious, and the Gyarados flinched away and calmed down before he started acting like a Poochyena pup."
When Dart gave a low whine, Brendan motioned to the water type as though to say, 'see what I mean?'
"Which is why we wanted to bring it up to the professor." Luke picked up as he patted the blue pokemon, who gave a throat rumble in appreciation. "If something is up with either you or Dart, he'd be the one to know. Right?"
"That and we don't want mom to come out and drag us home. Or for her to convince dad to do it." Brendan added, poking Luke in the ribs with his elbow. "Since this guy already used up all his magic convincing her to let us out in the first place."
"Don't you think she deserves to know though?" May asked, untying and tying the knot in her bandana. She was trying to hide it, but Julia knew the younger girl was nervous. She wasn't entirely sure why, but she had a feeling it might have to do with the Gyarados.
"Maybe," Luke admitted, patting the serpent's head as he returned it, "but it isn't really my place to tell her. I'd be fine with being the one to tell the professor since it had to do with my pokemon, but given their dynamic, it's up to them if she gets told."
"Regardless of if we tell her," Julia said, "let's table this discussion. I don't know how long I was out, but I'm famished. Can we go get some food?"
"Anyways," Luke said as the quartet left the restaurant and turned towards the trainer housing, "I'm going to take a walk to help that settle. I'll see you guys tomorrow morning for a day of not training."
"Actually," May said after the three had one of their silent conversations, "would you mind if we tagged along?"
The Unovan resisted the urge to sigh and shrugged instead. He'd been hoping to introduce Dart and Amelia to Gojira and Heracles tonight, but they could wait to be introduced to the guardians for another day.
"Sure. Let's head to the beach."
"Why?" Jul asked, a light frown on her face. "Don't you normally just walk around town?"
"Normally, yeah," he said as blue eyes turned to the east, "but I was planning to let Dart out and get him adjusted to salt water since he's lived in a brackish lake his entire life." Luke paused for a moment to look at the ball rolling in his hand as they approached the edge of town. "Especially since he's going to be my water transport pokemon moving forward."
"Really?" May asked with a laugh as Luke sent his newest evolved pokemon into the shallows, "You're sponsored by a company that's shipping you around and you're worried about water transport?"
"I mean, yeah. I like having my own ways to get around." Luke said with another shrug, "I'd like to get a flying transport at some point too. I thought Shigure would fill that role, then I realized how little weight a Swelow can actually carry."
When none of them responded, he took the chance to study Dart again.
The Gyarados was adjusting to the saline water well, splashing contently. His face was contorted into a monstrously large smile in spite of the rage he'd shown a flash of earlier that day.
Luke reasoned that anyone passing by would think the group of four trainers was either incredibly cocky or incredibly stupid to be walking casually beside the sea serpent. He couldn't tell for sure, but he reasoned that Dart was about twenty-five feet long or so. Small for his species, but he would grow in time.
With that in mind, he wondered about why the addition had evolved so quickly. Luke was by no means an expert on Magikarp, but he'd had him for less than a week when the articles he'd found indicated it taking at least a month. Magikarp needed time, nutrition, and exercise to become a Gyarados. For about a week he'd provided the last two, but there wasn't enough time that passed.
Granted, Luke had been hopeful to have him evolve within the two weeks between when he caught him and the gym battle. But he hadn't expected him to be ready this soon. And now the gauntlet he'd been mentally preparing for, teaching him obedience and anger management. Not that he was complaining, a Gyarados that didn't have anger issues was an incredible boon.
It'd take some extra time and training to teach him to safely ferry the four passengers he'd be responsible for carrying, but he would get there. For the moment, as May had said, he had access to transportation through Briney's sponsorship.
"So, do you think we're ready for our preliminary matches? The last set of prelims was a joke, at least for me and Julia, I'm assuming you too." The brown-eyed boy asked, opening Salazar's pokeball to let the gecko run in the sand. Julia also let her starter out of his ball, and May sent her Skitty out into her arms.
"I mean, I think so," Luke said. "Although I have no idea how big of a difference there is between tier one and two here. And I don't remember exactly how strong my team was when I did the tier two in Unova anyways." A small grin crossed his face as he looked to Dart.
"But there's only one real way to find out, yeah?"
Luke walked back into the waiting area less than ten minutes after leaving. Those that didn't know him probably thought he'd been humbled by the preliminary match until they saw the cocky grin on his face was still there as he walked up to Julia and Brendan.
"So, I take it you won?" Julia asked, steel eyes running over his face.
She was surprised, really, that his face was telling this much. There had been a tired smile after his win over Roxanne, and she hadn't seen him until he returned to the suite from the preliminary back in Rustburo.
"Of course he did," Brendan said, stroking Salazar's head, "if it was a battle he would have lost he wouldn't be back yet, none of his pokemon go down quickly. Especially if he used Dart."
Salazar chirped, pushing his head into his trainer's hand, and Julia smiled. Ever since his pokemon evolved yesterday on their day off from training, the Grovyle had been attention from the three rookies, Brendan more than the other two. The constant pats and praise had boosted the gecko's ego enough he probably thought he was a Sceptile already.
"I'm not saying you're wrong," Luke said with a shrug, "but I wouldn't use Dart in the prelims, he's my ace for the leader and I don't plan on him knowing I've got a Gyarados in the pocket. Regardless, I didn't need him. Shigure was more than enough to win the match and I would have used Rebecca as my second if things looked sticky."
The three continued to chat about the match with Luke not giving much away about what happened other than what his thoughts were as it went.
Then, not ten minutes after Luke came back, a gym clerk entered the room.
"Julia Carols, your preliminary match is ready. Julia Carols, your preliminary match is ready."
She took a deep breath before recalling her team and heading towards the door where the clerk stood. To her surprise, Luke tailed behind her.
"I've already finished my prelim, do you mind if I spectate my friend's match?" the Unovan asked the clerk, "I'm mentoring her and a couple other trainers, I thought it'd be helpful if I watched so I could break it down with them later."
The clerk narrowed her eyes at the boy, looking him up and down. "I suppose. But no recording, video or otherwise, is allowed in the room. Same as if you were in the match yourself."
"Of course."
"Then both of you, please follow me."
Julia could feel her heart rate climbing. Not just the prelim, but Luke would be watching too? It hadn't bothered her during her gym battle with Roxanne, but it was making her nervous here. But nerves didn't matter. She'd just push them down and keep going. She had to.
The trainer at the other side of the room the clerk led them to was vastly different from the man who had been her opponent in Rustburo. Dressed in a white martial arts uniform secured around the waist with a black belt, he looked like he planned on taking part in the fighting himself. Judging by his broad shoulders and large muscles, he probably wouldn't do too bad in a melee.
A hand being placed on her shoulder surprised her, and she turned to see Luke give what she was sure was supposed to be a comforting smile. His light squeeze of her shoulder did far more to reassure her.
"You've got this." He said as he made his way to the side of the room, "he's nothing that you can't handle."
"This will be a two-on-one single battle with the challenger being allowed to substitute freely between two pokemon," the clerk said from the center of the gym, taking the referee role, "while Takao will be allowed only one pokemon. Ready?"
Julia nodded, using the pause to breathe deeply and pull Oliver and Kord's balls into her hand. She'd start with Oliver, and if he got too worn down she'd switch to the grass type and win against an already tired opponent through attrition and status moves. Luke was confident in her, and she was confident in her pokemon. They could do this.
"Begin!"
The Marshtomp emerged in a flash of light from his pokeball, letting out what she was sure could be a terrifying croak to the right ears. The Machop that appeared across from him did not have that set of ears.
For a moment, nothing happened, the two pokemon content to size each other up for the moment.
"Oliver, go!"
"Marcus, karate chop!"
The mudfish shot a ball of mud from his mouth as he approached the fighting type, opting to take the hit from the chop instead of dodging. Blows were traded between the two until a chop landed on Oliver's head, giving a popping sound that nearly made Julia sick.
Oliver's response was grabbing the small, muscle-bound humanoid by a leg and arm and slamming it into the ground, creating a new dent in the floor. While the basic pokemon was stunned, the mudfish reared his head back and spewed high pressure water directly onto his enemy.
"Low kick!"
A grey limb shot out from under the stream of water to knock Oliver's legs from under him, colliding with his ankles. But the Marshtomp remained upright.
Instead he reached down and grabbed the leg, hoisting the Machop over his head again before slamming him into the ground. Then he lifted the superpower pokemon over the ground and blasted him with water until the gym trainer returned his pokemon, a scowl on his face.
As Julia walked toward the center of the arena to shake hands, the man on the other side turned around and walked out of the room. She shrugged and turned back to see Luke's scowl.
"Something wrong?" she asked as the pair went back to the warm-up room, "Your face looks better when you aren't doing a Crobatman impression."
"It should be nothing," he said, the both of them scanning the crowded room for Brendan, "hopefully. Gym trainers are supposed to be held to a certain level of sportsmanship, at least they are back home. I just don't like how it feels with him walking out without shaking hands."
"Anyways," the Unovan said with a shake of his head, "it doesn't look like Brendan is here, he probably got called up right after you. Too bad, I wanted to watch his battle."
"Don't you think it would help us more if we got to see the way you battle in these matches?" Julia asked as she let out Selina the Skitty. "Just to get to see how you do it instead of you critiquing us?"
"I battle against people the same way I train against you guys and the wilds," he said, letting out Franz to play with Selina, "so there isn't much to learn from what you'd see. Just more of my pokemon battling and me reacting situationally. I like to think I win battles ahead of time with better training and conditioning. So I don't really know what you guys would learn from watching me."
As he finished speaking, her brother walked back into the room with a confident smirk fixed on his face.
"Forager wrecked that guy," Brendan said as he held up his Dustox's pokeball, "what about you?"
Julia shrugged. "Oliver."
"Figures."
Training with Dart was going far better than Luke had any right to hope it would. The serpent was obedient and controlled, if a bit hesitant on some attacks so he wouldn't hurt the opposing pokemon too badly. In short, far more thoughtful than he had been led to believe Gyarados ever were. Maybe he didn't need to be spending one of his scheduled days off training the leviathan?
As he stood on the lake shore, the question of finding the Steven Stone came up in his mind again. Truth be told, he'd forgotten about the letter entirely until it happened to cross his mind that day. According to the rookies and the weather channel, they would have a narrow window to get out of Dewford and to Slateport before the rainy season made the passage impossible for most ships.
Which in turn meant he was running out of time to find Steven and deliver the letter. A trainer like him being relegated to a simple letter courier for a company that he wasn't even affiliated with. His irritation over the situation overpowered the traces of nostalgia he felt. Especially considering he didn't have a friend in this company that he was helping like before.
He opened his 'nav and searched 'Steven Stone' as Dart splashed happily in the lake. The first thing he tapped on were the images once the search results were on screen. A tall, slim man who looked too young for the combed silver hair, dressed in a suit in almost all the pictures. In the few the man wasn't wearing formal attire in, he was dressed plainly in generic hiking attire. Long pants tucked into high boots, a windbreaker over a quarter-zip pullover.
So all he got from the images was to look for a well-dressed adult male with silver hair. Time to move to the other tabs.
Luke was met with a lot of articles about rocks in different regions, describing value, importance and rarity. Most of them were written by Steven himself, published under the Devon Cooperation. So he was a rock nut. Cool. That didn't really help Luke find him though. Unless he was at either the quarry or in the mines somewhere.
Actually, that was probably it, given Mr. Stone sent him and Julia to Dewford specifically. The Unovan teen just wished the CEO had mentioned it when they were still in his office.
As he was about to close the device, Luke saw a link that said something about 'Champion Stone.'
And how could he not click on it?
So, that was the 16th installment. A bit shorter than what the last few have been, but these are about what to expect going forward. Somewhere between 4k and 6k words as the new average instead of the 3k average I thought would be the norm when I started this story.
As for why Luke doesn't know about who Steven is, he's from Unova, and there's limited contact between regions. And he never really cared for being a spectator to foreign battles or sports, or paying attention to who's the leader of a country. Because you know, Unova is based on the US. And people in the US (for the most part) only care about other countries as they impact the US. And Steven wasn't impacting Unova.
For why it took so long for Luke to 'Google' Steven, he's just been preoccupied with training and getting the rookies ready. Speaking of, Gyarados. I grinded the hell out of Granite Cave and the gym trainers to get Dart to a Gyarados before Brawly to give me a pokemon that actually resisted fighting type moves. Franz was weak to them, so was Amelia, Serra too, Ewan was dead, and Shigure was frail and I didn't trust the game to not crit him. Which would have left me with Rebecca trying to solo it, which I wasn't a fan of, so I got on the grind and got a Gyarados.
As always, special shout-out to Maycontestdrew for her reviews!
If you enjoyed it, drop a review, let me know what you liked or what was wrong. Hit me up with a PM if that's more your style. Don't forget to follow/favorite if you want to get a notification when I update!
Anyway, I'll be gone until I'm back again. Stay safe y'all.